


Chosen Realities

by LadyDrace



Category: BioShock Infinite
Genre: Declarations of Intent, F/M, Getting Together, Introspection, Light Angst, Post-Game(s), Talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-29
Updated: 2015-11-29
Packaged: 2018-05-03 23:40:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5311499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyDrace/pseuds/LadyDrace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Instead of killing Booker, Elizabeth chose to go to Paris with him and close all the doors behind them. But, of course, Columbia was nothing like the real world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chosen Realities

**Author's Note:**

> I am completely new to this ship, though not really new to the game. But this is my first fic, and I hope to write many more. :)

They made it. Against all odds, they made it out. Away. To Paris.

 

And never had Elizabeth missed books more.

 

Books were easy. Even when different books gave different answers, there were only ever always a finite number of answers, and they were simple, letters on paper, numbers in black and white.

 

But people? People were chaos, and every little misstep was enough to make their looks of openness and kindness change to a confused frown or a hostile glare. So many possible ways of offending or alienating someone, that when she finally had people to talk to, like she'd always wanted, she always ended up choosing Booker instead. Someone who was, even on his best days, not a very good conversationalist. Someone who'd seen her in her cage, who knew and didn't care, someone who showed affection in fits and starts, and...

 

A friend. Maybe her only one.

 

“So, make new friends,” he told her, and she wanted to yell at him, because it wasn't that simple. Maybe it was to him, someone who looked and acted right, even when he spoke horrifically bad French, and exhibited less than perfect manners. There was always something lacking with Elizabeth. Always some way she was awkward or too close or not close enough or spoke too freely or too little.

 

But there was no choice but to keep trying. What little they'd managed to carry with them from Columbia was put away for emergencies, and money for living expenses had to come from somewhere. And, as it turned out, a gruff, unpolished American man could find work much easier than a strange, willowy and outspoken girl who obviously lived with him out of wedlock.

 

For a supposedly free-spirited and liberal place, France sure wasn't very forgiving of that particular sin.

 

It made her angry, because she'd committed no sin. She'd even gone to church until she realized it only gave the locals opportunity to stare at her and gossip. After that she did her praying at home in the small apartment she and Booker shared.

 

He'd given her the tiny bedroom, most likely out of chivalry, while he spent his nights on a narrow cot in the main room. Having spent every night of her life that she could remember sleeping alone, it was shocking how much she hated it now, knowing he was so close and yet might as well have been millions of miles away, across a gaping chasm of propriety. As a consequence, every morning was spent snapping at Booker in her overtired frustration, but he never blamed her, not even once, and even _that_ made her angry.

 

But every day she spent looking for work and finding barely anything, her anger fizzled out of her, to be replaced by discouragement and eventual gratitude when Booker finally returned after sundown, bringing home their only income.

 

He was in Paris because of her, taking whatever day work a foreigner could get, and never complained. There was probably still an office back in New York with his name on it, a business he was skilled at, and more possibilities for both of them. But he stayed here, with her. Because of her romantic notions. Indulging her childish fantasies, maybe out of some misguided notion that he'd wronged her.

 

How mistaken he was.

 

Booker had freed her, not just from the physical cage of the tower, but also the mental cage, carefully shaped by feeding her just the right books and clues until she could be used. They had shaped her into an image. A statue ready to be worshipped. A mouthpiece for the prophet.

 

Or, rather, Comstock had _tried_. But no matter how hard he'd locked her down, she'd always itched to escape, to rebel, to _live_.

 

And Booker had given her life.

 

Maybe in more ways than metaphorical, if the glimpses from the tears were anything to go by.

 

But she chose to ignore those, because if she went down that path she was afraid she'd get lost in it. And as scary and dismaying as her life was, it was still better than the all-encompassing terror of carrying the weight of all the doors and all the knowledge. She'd slammed them all shut when she could just as easily have opened them. She didn't dare open them again. She didn't _want_ to. And Booker never asked.

 

Maybe because he'd already _seen_.

 

“Would... would things be easier for you here,” Booker asked one night, stars bright through the one narrow window they had, “if we told people that we're... that you're my...” he trailed off with a frustrated sigh, and Elizabeth snorted where she sat, curled up in their one chair.

 

“In what way, exactly, am I your daughter, Booker?”

 

He gave her thimble a pointed look, and she clenched her fist. “Tell me, Mr DeWitt,” she said, feeling like she needed the structure of politeness to avoid shattering under the weight of infinity looming over her. “How old are you?”

 

Booker blinked, his lips moving like the answer was right there, but then suddenly wasn't. “Twen- no, thirty... two?” He shook his head and sat down on his cot across from her. “Everything's still a little scrambled, I guess.”

 

She nodded slowly. “I'll be twenty, this winter. So even if we wanted to play that game, it would be a tricky sell, don't you think?”

 

“You're probably right.”

 

Time ticked by between them, silence heavy under the simple, yet crushing burden of making a life in the bleakest of circumstances.

 

“Would it be easier for _you_ , if we went back?” Elizabeth asked eventually, and Booker frowned.

 

“Back to where?”

 

“New York.”

 

“Yeah, _right_ ,” he huffed. “Back to my debts, my office which I hadn't paid rent on in almost a year before I even left for Columbia, not to mention the memories of- yeah, no thanks. That's assuming all of that even exists in this... world or tear or whatever. We've gone through so many now I've lost track. Hell, I'm not even sure what year it is.”

 

Ice pooled in her gut for a moment before she remembered that she'd looked for this in particular before slamming the doors behind them, and she leaned forward to put her smaller hand on his, feeling the chill on his skin.

 

“It'll settle. It _will_. Now that Comstock is dead, you're no longer both trying to occupy the same space in one world. It's gonna take time, but it'll get better. I promise.”

 

His hand turned under hers, and his palm was less chilled, warmth building between their fingers from proximity.

 

“If I take his place, though... wouldn't that make me more of your father?”

 

“Only on a quantum physics level. There's no telling how many times Lutece found you and brought you to Columbia, or even if it was from the same universe every time. And for all we know, even Comstock wasn't truly my father. The odds of us being from the same world are... minute.” She could check. All she had to do was open the doors. But no. She never wanted to do that again.

 

He squeezed her hand, hard and brief. “But does that really change-”

 

“Change what, Booker? That you came for me? That you fought for me? That we escaped that nightmare together?”

 

A long, tense moment later he sighed, and shook his head. “No. No, I guess it doesn't.” He sent her a small smile, and she returned it, feeling warmth return to her, and it wasn't from the coarsely weaved blanket around her shoulders.

 

“Be honest with me. Do I feel like your daughter?” she asked quietly, because it felt like she could. Booker rarely revealed what he was thinking or feeling, but for once he'd been the one to start talking. And she didn't want him to stop.

 

She worried that her question would make him close off again, but instead he huffed out a soft laugh. “I feel like I shouldn't answer that.”

 

“Why not?”

 

He leveled her with a complicated look. “You're a smart girl, Elizabeth. Figure it out.”

 

“I can't. I don't have any books anymore,” she said airily. “Guess you're just gonna have to explain it to me.”

 

He laughed again, trailing off into a sigh that sounded almost incredulous. “Arrh, of course. Maybe I should have started out with a different question.”

 

She grinned at him, playful. “And what question might that be, Mr. Dewitt?”

 

His eyes narrowed at her briefly, followed by another smile before it faded.

 

“Whether it would make things easier for you if... we got married.”

 

It felt like all the air was sucked from her lungs, because that was a whole other matter entirely. She wasn't going to try and convince herself that she hadn't pondered the option, late at night, in the dark, alone in her tiny room. But to hear it laid out there, as a viable option...

 

“I... I guess that would depend on what that marriage would entail.”

 

“Whatever you want it to,” Booker said immediately, like he'd been _prepared_ for it. Like he'd spent time thinking it through already. Just as she had.

 

“And what if I said I wanted it to be... real?”

 

Booker's eyes were like fire where they met hers.

 

“Then it's real.”

 

 

TBC?

 

**Author's Note:**

> [Feel free to come find me on Tumblr!](http://ladydrace.tumblr.com/)


End file.
